Bulgarian PM Offers Perplexing Explanations in 'Buddha' Case Scandal

February 5, 2013, Tuesday // 12:25

Bulgarian Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, denies having been an informant of the anti-mafia police. Photo by BNES

Bulgarian Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, has claimed that the police case for operative surveillance against him was launched because he has been a private bodyguard of Communist Dictator, Todor Zhivkov, and of former Tsar, Simeon Saxe-Coburg.

The document shows that on February 24, 1997, the Central Services for Combatting Organized Crime, CSBOP "Internal Terrorism" Department has launched a case for operative surveillance (DON) against Boyko Metodiev Borisov. The case was listed under the alias "Buddha." He was, allegedly, recruited as informant over his ties with the mafia.

"Of course, they will launch a surveillance case as I have been the bodyguard of these two people. It was not me being so interesting for the anti-mafia police and for Prime Minister, Ivan Kostov; they were interested in other people" the PM said Tuesday in response of an inquiry of the Bulgarian online news agency Dnevnik.

The statement raised a few eyebrows since the said document and another one, published by Bivol Sunday, revealing that Borisov has been recruited as a secret agent of CSBOP, date from February, 1997, and December, 1996, respectively.

The Cabinet of right-wing leader Ivan Kostov ruled between the summer of 1997 until the summer of 2001, while Saxe-Coburg was PM of Bulgaria between 2001 and 2005, and then part of the previous Cabinet of the Three-Way Coalition between 2005 and 2009.

Borisov further told Dnevnik Tuesday that he was not at all worried by the publications and he did not feel obliged to read "their non-sense."

Speaking later for the Focus News Agency, Borisov stressed that had he had been an agent, he would be glad to share such information.

"The goal is to discredit us," he stated.

He proceeded to explain that the codename Buddha stemmed from a scary incident in 1997, when the SUV of his then girlfriend, now top banker, Tsvetelina Borislavova, was blown up, and the police codenamed the case Buddha.

"In the police report, there are three sentences in the bottom, informing that Tsvetelina Borislavova lives with Boyko Borisov, head of the private security company IPON. And, as you know, the cases are codenamed; someone gave it the name Buddha. And now, to discredit me, they say Borisov was agent Buddha. I am Christian Orthodox; you know this is another God," Borisov noted.

Borislavova's SUV has been blown up in Sofia on March 27, 1997, over a month after the date on the second document.

One day earlier, Borisov asked for the Buddha file to be declassified and denied having been an informant.

The documents have leaked anonymously through Bivol's platform Balkanleaks, which is modeled after the famous WikiLeaks, and have been revealed for the very first time.

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